Phantom Faces
by Shiro
Summary: Inside white walls, someone is plagued by faces from the past that have been forgotten.


**Phantom Faces**

White walls. Clean, white walls marred only by the glowing red eye hovering just beneath the ceiling. And of course by the mirror. You can't forget the mirror. Not when you can look up and see what you have become, see a face you can't recognize. Aha - I don't recognize any faces, anymore. Perhaps that's why the faces stopped entering this room. 

"...no, I said not to turn it on yet." 

"Sir? Yes, sir, but -" _Click_

There's a table here, with markings. I think I used to be able to understand them. The voices behind the mirror claim I wrote them, but I have no memory of such an act. Sometimes, I find myself beside the table, running my fingers along the grooves of the markings, as if I could read them as the blind read braille. But when the voices suddenly ask me why, I retreat to this corner. This corner, where I feel safe. Until the faces return. 

...because they _always_ return. A dark-haired youth with gleaming, soulless eyes. A fair-haired girl with laughter the sound of birds chirping in the morning. A young man with a sadness in his eyes from faces of his own. A dark-haired young girl always wearing a smile. Eyes, faces, voices... Even those I hardly knew return to haunt me. 

"He seems to be having one of those fits again, sir." 

"Yes." 

"Shouldn't we do something? Give him a sedative, or -" 

"Let's just - watch. Perhaps we can learn something that will enable us to help him." 

A girl sits down beside me, tucking her skirt beneath her legs as she places herself in a mirror position to my own. She leans her head against her knees, staring at me with those eyes that I should remember. That I can't remember. 

_They won't leave you alone, will they?_ The voice, the face, belongs to another. My sitting companion cannot speak; she never speaks. Sometimes I wonder why that is; mostly I don't. _Even now... after all you've been through. _The face belongs to another girl - one with flowing dark hair. She leans against one of the white walls, her eyes looking to the mirror rather than to me. 

_It is because they are human._ Another voice. 

_That's a little harsh, I would think._ And another. A young woman with cold eyes and a man with laughing ones, the former beside the window as if she could see through it to the people beyond. She touches it as if in rememberance. 

_They simply don't understand. Nothing more than that._ Sadness behind a shock of white hair, golden eyes staring at the floor. A well-manicured hand touches his shoulder, a sad smile on the face of its owner. 

_Perhaps they are not able to._

_Or perhaps it is best that they don't._ This from a middle-aged man hiding behind two mirrors of his own. He and the woman with the manicured hands nod to each other, as if expressing a secret between only the two of them. 

_Our work was meaningless, then._

_Meaningless or no, it held a purpose when a purpose was needed. Wouldn't you say so?_ A smile between old friends, lovers, rivals. The girl beside me reaches over and clasps my hand warmly, offering wordless support with a gentle smile. 

_But he's the one to suffer for all of it. That's not right, is it?_ A laughing face, half-obscured by dark hair gestures in my direction from her place sitting atop the table. She looks to a man with a rugged face who seems to hold no answer and can only shrug at her childish question. _Right?_ She looks around the room at the others gathered there. 

_It's not._ She turns to catch a glimpse of a young man with short hair and a serious look on his face. The long dark-haired young woman looks up as well, offering him a tight half-smile which he returns heartily. _But that's the way things are, I guess._ He reaches up to ruffle the young girl's hair, and she protests. _Not everything can be perfect in life. We know that better than any other group of people can._ The girl looks to the floor, unable to hold back the tears in her eyes for my sake, for their sakes. My companion reaches her arms around me, and I lean my head against her shoulder. I close my eyes against the wash of faces, voices, and a forgotten lifetime. 

_You'll never be free of it._ A dark voice. A dark voice belonging to gleaming eyes and a false smile. The others are gone. They always leave whenever the last comes. Even the girl beside me has gone; I lean against the corner of two walls, staring out at he who arrives last everytime. _You'll never be free of the guilt, for causing all of this._ He chuckles, always finding amusement in my little room. Moving to the table, he runs his fingers along the markings. _See? Here, you've even engraved all their names. I wonder how, if they are nameless faces to you now._ I turn my head to the side, but he reaches down and drags me to my feet. 

_Take a look! These are the names of those you've willed yourself to forget. This is all that is left of them. All that is left of what they did. What they lived and died for. And you? What do you do?_ He shakes me, holding my arm as if it were that of a doll. _You record it here, and forget it all._ He drops me to the floor, where I sit as I always do, motionless, emotionless. 

_You should have died with the rest of us._ He turns abruptly, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His face never softens. One last look over his shoulder at the pitiful form on the floor, and he is gone like the others. It takes me a moment to stand, to reach out to him, although he is far beyond my reach. I look to the table, to its indecipherable markings, my mind wishing desperately to know their meaning, but preventing me from remembering it at the same time. 

"...'Here you've engraved all their names,' you said..." Voices behind the mirror mutter to the themselves, and the red eye beneath the ceiling stares unblinking. None of the markings resemble the characters for my own name, which I can remember far too clearly.  


_Rest._ The voice is a new one, familiar, like the others. The voices behind the mirror are talking, but I can hear only the one voice in my mind. In the corner sits a young girl, snowy-white hair obscuring her face and much of her clothes. She reaches out a tiny hand to me. _Rest, Kakyou. It is enough_. 

The voices beyond the mirror mean nothing. As my hand touches hers', the room is bathed in red, then black. Distantly, a door slams and feet rush past. Faces surround me, and a long-haired angel reaches for my hand as the young girl vanishes. 

"Ko...to....ri...." 

The face smiles. 

  



End file.
